Get Excited About Robotics (GEAR)

GEAR is an annual 6-8 week LEGO® robotics challenge for elementary and middle school
students during which student teams build and program LEGO® robots (using the Mindstorms
NXT kits) to perform specified tasks.

To solve the challenge, students learn engineering skills through a teaming exercise
in designing, building, programming, testing, and troubleshooting wheeled LEGO® robots
that perform and compete on an eight foot by eight foot field.

GEAR itself is a nonprofit 501(c) 3 volunteer organization, which was created to foster
interest among today’s youth in a career in engineering, science or technology.

GEAR provides the game rules for the annual competition together with instructions
on how to build game tables and pieces.

Since 2006 a GEAR competition is held at Texas Tech University.

Participation is open to all elementary and middle schools.

Each school can have several participating teams.

School teams visit the TTU campus for kickoff, a trial run, and game day.

Game pieces are distributed to schools at no participation fee.

A limited number of LEGO® Mindstorms NXT kits are made available to schools.

During the 6-8 week competition school teams meet at their school with a teacher coaching
the teams.